


Champagne, Cocaine, Gasoline

by Merely_Specters



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Drug Abuse, Drug Addict Klaus Hargreeves, Drug Addiction, Ficlet, Gen, Introspection, One Shot, Pre-Series, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:09:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24381844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merely_Specters/pseuds/Merely_Specters
Summary: Sometimes, though he’d never admit it, Klaus missed being sober.Or: Klaus reads Vanya's book and shows up on her doorstep.
Relationships: Klaus Hargreeves & Vanya Hargreeves
Comments: 5
Kudos: 79





	Champagne, Cocaine, Gasoline

Klaus was on his way to his dealer when he saw Vanya’s book gleaming in the window. He didn’t have enough money to buy both the book and blue heaven, so when the shopkeeper turned around for a moment, he ran off with it. The poor dear couldn’t keep up.

He couldn't read it in his current state: the words simply swam on the page. So once the drugs' effects began to fade, as he lingered between one high and the next, he read. Klaus read the chapter on himself first, of course. He was nothing if not consistently vain.

_Or at least, he maintained the image of his vanity. It was easiest to stay numb when nobody knows you ever felt anything in the first place._

Klaus showed up at Vanya's apartment that night. The ghosts howled around him, but he mustered up the courage to knock at her door. It creaked open.

"Who is it—oh. I didn't think I gave you the address.”

"Oh, well, you know: the phone book's a marvelous read," Klaus said airily. He staggered forward and leaned on the door. “You know what else is a marvelous read?”

“...What?”

"May I come in?"

Vanya decreased the size of the crack. "No. Last time you sat on my couch, you vomited on it."

" _Okay_ , your loss." Klaus closed the gap between their two faces and leered centimeters from Vanya's face: his foul breath made Vanya cough. She leaned back, away from Klaus.

"Why are you here?" she said tiredly.

"I didn't think you had such an interest in writing, my dear."

"You read it?"

"Of course. Ben and I quite enjoyed dredging up our past," Klaus slurred, leaning and putting his full weight on the door. The chain of the door's lock tightened. "I just wanted to say that I for one do _not_ enjoy you airing out my dirty laundry. I've got a reputation to uphold, you know." Klaus was giggling now, sliding down the door and sitting at the bottom.

_Being high was a precarious balance between being perfectly oblivious and perfectly numb. The numbness was, of course, what Klaus was going for, but sometimes he missed the depth of emotion that sobriety had given him._

"You're high, Klaus. You’re not in any condition to talk to me about what I can and cannot do."

"Oh, but I _can_.” He accentuated the word, drawing it out until he was out of breath. “This is who I am... if I don't say it now," he threw out his arms, "I'll never say it!" The contents of his pockets dropped out onto the floor as he did: swearing, Klaus sluggishly began picking up every pill that had spilled.

_He didn’t miss sobriety when he was high, mind you. He missed it in the in-betweens, the nooks and crannies between this and that, the spaces between coke and alcohol, cigarettes and ecstasy. He missed it during the headaches, the hangovers, the coughing and the retching, the consequences of drugs taken over a lifetime._

_But Klaus didn’t miss sobriety during the highs. No, as long as the ghosts were far away from his psyche, he couldn’t care less._

Vanya paused, opening the door a little more."...why are you always high, Klaus?"

"I like it. I'm the best version of me!"

_Even as he said it, Klaus knew it was a lie. There was something about being high that made Klaus feel… off. And it wasn’t just the drugs. No, he missed caring. Caring and feeling._

"No, Klaus. This is exactly why I wrote my book. You just can't be serious. You guys never take me seriously!"

“If it's any comfort to you, I don't take anything seriously."

Vanya closed the door.

Klaus began hitting his forehead on the door.

"I'm your brother, let me in," he said, almost spitting on the door as he did.

"Go be at a party or something," Vanya said, muffled.

“Hey, you don’t get to judge me for dealing with power problems when you’ve never had any yourself!” Klaus retorted.

_Sometimes, Klaus missed being sober when he was high, but he_ always _missed being high when he was sober. Seeing the ghosts was too much for him to handle. Seeing the mangled, strangled, bodies twisted beyond comprehension spilling out of houses and door frames was the reason he had begun taking drugs in the first place. They felt so wrong in a way that only the dead can._

_His thirteenth Halloween was when he decided to start. During such a scary season it was easy to believe that every ghost he saw was just a person in a mask... that is, until the eve itself came. The ghosts came out in full force, tossing and turning and craving to be heard. Nobody could fulfill that need except Klaus._

_Someone had offered him weed. Klaus didn't remember who, but it was probably a dealer or some hapless friend who didn't know what he'd done… though "friend" is a strong word. Acquaintance, maybe, but no friend would offer Klaus something that would ruin the rest of his life._

_That first high was happiness. Somewhere between the smoking and the mansion, he realized that the spirits weren't around him anymore. That realization hit, and what followed was pure bliss._

_Klaus realized then that heaven was found in a bottle, that a bong was its pearly gates._

_You always chase your first high. Klaus had been doing exactly that, but when you’ve been chasing for decades, it begins to feel farther and farther out of reach. No other instance compares to your first time, and every attempt to get back is futile._

_And the lower you go, the more you miss life as it used to be._

Klaus was so deep in his mind that he didn’t detect Vanya’s inhale, didn’t hear the distress as she said, “This kind of behavior is exactly why I wrote the book.”

Klaus sighed. "You're missing out!" he said in a singsong voice.

There was a moment of silence before Vanya's voice came muffled, "No. I'm not the one who's missing out."

The lock clicked back into place, and Klaus was left alone in the hallway.

Alone.

“ _Alone” was why he started taking drugs in the first place._


End file.
